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Commentary: Early presidents wouldn’t have chance today

Staff photo Chris Stewart Dayton Daily News columnist, Amelia Robinson

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By Amelia Robinson, Staff Writer Updated 1:29 PM Monday, February 20, 2012

It's Presidents Day and one thing is clear, our former presidents would be hammered if they faced today’s political attack ads during their candidacies.

Take the first 16 presidents for instance:

George Washington: Can you really trust a man with wooden teeth and such a weirdo hairline? We don’t need another hero and we don’t need another “King George.” Reject this cherry tree killer.

John Adams: Another New England lawyer trying to force Alien and Sedition Acts down our throats. Oh, and what’s with the hairline?

Thomas Jefferson: He may have been the principal writer of the Declaration of Independence, but what has he done for you lately. And did we really need to purchase Louisiana?

James Madison: This is just another lifetime politician who thinks people deserve “rights.” Tell James Madison where to take his Bill of Rights on election day.

James Monroe: He may have “won” more than 80 percent of the electoral vote in 1816, but what about the other 20 percent? Tell James Monroe that ONLY the vast majority of voters wanted him in office.

John Quincy Adams: He’s half the president his dad was. Tell little Adams that his educational reforms are not for John Q. Pubic. What good is reading anyway?

Andrew Jackson: And you thought a return of the weird hairline look would be a good thing. Not so thanks to fist-fighting Andy. They may call him Old Hickory, but his ideas are too new for civilized folk.

Martin Van Buren: He wasn’t even born a British subject. He’s Dutch. They smoke marijuana don’t they?

William Henry Harrison: Never trust a man whose name is three first names.

John Tyler: This rich Virginia aristocratic doesn’t know the struggle of the common, white, male, adult land owner.

James K. Polk: We feel it in our bones: He’s going to oversee the opening of one of those fancy museums and call it the Smithsonian Institution or something crazy like that.

Zachary Taylor: Seriously, does Zack sound like the first name of a president? We didn’t think so.

Millard Fillmore: Off with the Whigs.

Franklin Pierce: He’s easy on the eye, but mark our words, Franklin will be ranked among the worst U.S. presidents by a 1999 survey conducted by a thing called C-Span.

James Buchanan: So where’s his wife? That’s right, no wife. If he can’t commit to a woman, he can’t commit to a nation.

Abraham Lincoln: Too tall.

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